Sansan Raises US$26.43M in Series E Funding

Sansan, a Tokyo, Japan- and Singapore-based provider of a cloud-based contact management service for businesses, raised JPY 3 billion (US$26.43 million) in Series E funding.

The round, which brought total funding raised to date to over JPY 11.4 billion (US$100m), was led by Japan Post Capital, T. Rowe Price, SBI Investment, and DCM Ventures.

The company intends to use the funds to strengthen the whole value chain from marketing to sales and customer success.

Led by Chika Terada, Founder and CEO, and Kei Tomioka, Co-founder and Director, Sansan converts business cards lying dormant within companies into actionable data. While proprietary OCR software is used to instantly digitize each card, actual staff also check each and every card to confirm accuracy. The system natively helps users track job changes, view contact’s backgrounds and social media presence. It also acts as an internal social network of business contacts.
Sansan also has a B2C app, “Eight”, built for individual users. It is Japan’s largest professional social network with over 2 million registered users. The app recently acquired over 100k users across Indonesia, India, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore since its launch outside Japan in October 2017.
Eight provides options such as instant chat messaging and an activity feed, providing business opportunities and timely updates from one’s network.

Sansan’s services have been deployed by over 7,000 companies worldwide, including Lenovo Group Ltd., Merck & Co. and Seven & i Holdings Co.
Some of its clients in Singapore include A*Star, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Tokyo Gas, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Shimadzu, Sumitomo Chemical, among others.